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“ Whkn one has made this One Great Sacrifice, a,ll else must he forgiven him ! ’’ 




s 


Schooners ihai Bump on the Bar : 


AN AUTOMATIC TOW FROM 

“Ships that Pass in the Night.” 


BY THE AUTHOR OF 


THE ROCK OR THE RYE,” ” SOCIETY AS I HAVE FOUNDgRED IT,” ETC. 





A 


8 


1894 . 

4^ WAS 

Chips that pass in the Night, and nick each other in passing: 

Only an ace-high shown, and a dismal voice of the loser. 

So. in the great Game of Life, we bluff and beat one another— 

Only a Bluff and a Beat, then dealing again and an Ante. 

— Shortfellow . 



MOBILE. ALA : 
Gossip Printing CoAtPANv. 
i8q4. 



T^3 

,X)3TT> 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1894, 
By T. C. DeLEON, 


In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


All Rights Reserved. 


If’ 


Oil} 

?>rio 

-s’friA Hi. 1. ru, j; 



•' ;a. 


“.t • k 


TO MY SERIOUS FRIEND. 


THE AVERAGE AMERICAN 


Who is growing rich too fast, is laughing too 

LITTLE, AND HAS TOO MANY NATIONAL 

Drinks for the sanity 
OF his liver. 


THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED. 


THE AUTHOR INTERVIEWS HIMSELF. 


The author of any Great Work is sure to be interviewed. The 
author of the Inspiration for this one said to her interviewer : 

“ If Christ came to earth to-morrow, and though He were foot- 
sore and weary unto death, the American newspapers would have 
reporters at the landing to interview Him ! ” 

Merciful by nature, I spare my brethren of the quill all pains, by 
interviewing myself. This is good for them. It is better for me. 
I know what I wish them to say almost as well as they could say it 
for me. 

The author of the Inspiration, speaking of her Great Work, said : 
“ I’ve quite forgotten what it’s all about.” 

Here is a coincidence. Neither can I remember what mine is 
about. I only hope that millions of my countrymen may try to find 
out. 

The reader may find many things in it which have nothing to do 
with the book ; some that have nothing to do with anything. They 
are there because this is a modern Great Work. 

But / do know why I wrote my book. It was with the sincere 
hope that it might go forth broadcast, to every home in this wide 
land, and do Untold Good — to me : wdth the hope that the “darned 
unappreciative cuss,” crystalized in the pages of ” Artemus, the 
Divine,” might pass it in the night, and many another fellow read 
it — for coin. 

The fair Inspirer further interviews: “It isn’t fair to hold an 
author responsible for what her characters say and do. Frankly, 
my philosophy, my religion, is not near so unhappy as that which 
you think you have found in the book.” 

Another coincidence : neither is mine. I am not near so thirsty 
as most of my characters : am a far worse holder than the Bottom- 
less Man. 

As my Great Work is a brief one, this is interview enough. 


(6) 




TABI.K ('> 1 ' CHAPTER HEADINGS. 

PAGE 

L A New Case 9 

II. Contains a Few Cocktaies 

III. Mrs. Murray Hiee-Smith Learns Nothing 14 

IV. The Bottomeess Man 20 

V. The Constituent and the Tempee op Trust ..... 23 

yi. Vassareine 27 

VH. The Story Moves On, Thank Goodness ! 30 

VIII. Vassareine Proses 35 

IX. “ When One Has Made the O. G. S.” ^8 

X. The Bottomeess Man Asks Usury 44 

XI. Makes Much Ado About Nothing 51 

XII. A Betrothae, at Last 54 

XIII. Schooners That Bump as They Pass 58 

XIV. A Luny Lovp:-Letter 61 

BOOK 11. 

1 . The Dusting op thp: Junk 67 

II. Vassye Begins Her Etching 70 

HI. Humbug and Reaeity; An Etching 71 

IV. The Bottomeess Man Loses His Grip 75 

V. The Breaking OB' the Camee’s Back 78 


( 7 ) 



SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


I. 

A N'EW CASE. 

“Sure, parduer!” remarked one of the guests at the 
Nevada table. “ We start life thinking we shall own a silver 
mine, a simple solution of the financial question, and we end 
by borrowing nickels.” 

“ You seem an expert on human nature,” said the Bottom- 
less Man, suddenly looking up from the IVeakfy Developer^ 
on which he always dined ; ‘ ‘ but you should have said that 
we dig a hole and pull it in after us, like the doodles.” 

The Chicago contingent was struck with wonder at hear- 
ing the Bottomless Man speak. The only three sentences 
he had spoken during his fifteen years at Pikerspeak were 
on record, and all three together were not so long as this 
one. 

“He’s going to speak again!” whispered beautiful Mrs. 
Murray Hill-Smith in her pure Parisian French. The Bot- 
tomless Man once more looked up from the Developer. 

“Pass me the Milwaukee Beer,” he said, in his brusque 
way, to the girl sitting next to him. 

The girl who passed the bottle sat stupid and listless ; her 
pretzel untouched, her beer untasted. She was a newcomer 
and had arrived at Pikerspeak only in time to clamber down 
from the stage-coach on to the table d'hote. 

“Is that what you asked for ? ” .she said, as out of a night- 
mare. “Or, was it the water bottle?” 

“You’re a joker, I guess,” said the Bottomless Man, 

( 9 ) 


jQ SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR, 

placidly. “ Do I look like one of the sort that would want 
the water bottle ? ” 

“Thanks, awfully ; but I had not noticed your nose,” she 
answered, drearily. 

“What have you come up here for ? ” he asked suddenly. 

“ Perhaps for the same reason as yourself,” she answered, 
with a night-before-last tremor of eyelid — “To get better 
or — worse ! ” 

“You can’t get much worse,” he retorted, cruelly. “ I 
know your sort. It’s heredity. You burn out quickly— 
and, gad ! how I envy you.” 

“ Listen,” she said, bending nearer to him, as newcoming 
young women always do to strange men at Pikerspeak 
“ Because you are bottomless, does it follow that others may 
not fill up? You have drunk deep of the cup : apropos of 
noses, I see that. To put your hand over the top is the part 
of selfishness ! ” 

She walked past the New York table, the Kansas City 
table and the Boston table, out of the Bierhaus dining-room. 


II. 

CONTAINS A FEW COCKTAILS. 

In a cold junk-shop in West Chicago sat an old woman, 
mixing a hot gin toddy. She did not put the mixture down 
when the postman came in. She just glanced indifferently 
at the letter, impatiently at the postman, longingly at the 
gin. Keziah Stryker could not stand interruption when she 
was mixing gin ; and, as she was always mixing gin, an in- 
terruption was regarded as an injury. 

About a week afterward, she opened the letter, and tore 



‘‘ Do I LOOK LIKE ONE THAT WOULD ASK FOR THE WATER BOTTLE ? ” 




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CONTAINS A FEW COCKTAILS. 


13 


it up without reading it. This was a pity. The letter 
would have told her that her niece, Vassarline, had arrived 
safely at the Pikerspeak Graduated Cure ; that she meant to 
get better and come home straight. As soon as Keziah did 
not know what was in the letter, she of course looked 
intently at the tin-type on the mantel-piece. It was the pic- 
ture of an old head on young shoulders, with the possibili- 
ties of a wink in one eye, and a nose — even in the dull black 
of the tin-type — that seemed to be burning itself away. 

Vassarline had suffered a thirsty childhood, in which cat- 
nip tea and soda water took no quenching part. This was 
not her fault ; it was heredity, which is the nickname we 
give to Hard Tuck. On the death of her father, from rapid 
deterioration in the quality of the whisky of commerce, she 
had been left to her maiden aunt. Miss Keziah was a con- 
servative in heredity. Her mother, and grandmother before 
her, had drank gin. She herself had stuck to gin for seventy 
years, and had defied the adulterations of the American 
National Nip. Aunt Keziah naturally knew little about 
fairies and less about Father Mathew ; and even Dr. Keeley 
had failed to win the little Vassarline. Heredity was too 
strong for them all ; and the little toddler looked vainly for 
heel-taps in her aunt’s glass, and, as she grew older, rushed 
her own little growler. 

What can be said for a childhood which even the Great 
Graduator has failed to touch with the tender glow of 
Bi-chloridian faith ? Vassarline was restless for spirits, tast- 
ing now in this direction, now in that, yet always actuated 
l)y one constant force — the desire for beer. 

Then the years went by. They generally do. She w^as a dil- 
igent worker, if nothing else ; and now she took her place 
as an able beer-jerker. But Vassarline, the young woman, 
had learned something which Vassarline, the child, had 
been unable to learn ; she had learned how to carry her 


14 SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 

load. It took her some six and thirty years to learn this. 
Still some people take longer than that ; in fact many never 
learn. Most of these die a-learning. 

Such is a brief summary of Vassarline Stryker’s past. 
Then one day, just as she was honing for the championship — 
waiting at beer-gardens, looking out for tips and attending 
all the picnics — she fell ill. Heredity, teaching by example, 
had got in its work. She lingered with her nerves for a 
while in the Chicago junk-shop, and then went to the Grad- 
uating Cure. 


III. 

MRS. MURRAY HILR-SMITH LEARNS NOTHING. 

Pikerspeak was a winter resort for hereditar}" Undergradu- 
ates, though, indeed, many persons who merel}- needed an 
occasional l^racer went there. Thej" came away wonderfull}^ 
better holders than before. This was what Vassarline had 
hoped to do. She was pretty well broken down by beer, 
but it was hoped a prolonged stay might prevent her from 
slipping into gin thereafter. vShe had come alone because 
all her relations were dead, and she could not expect them 
to come. As for Aunt Keziah, she could not leave the junk- 
shop, and she hated beer. Besides the girl had nomoney to 
treat any friend, so none would have been willing to come 
with her. But she probably cared ver}' little for that, for 
she was a Lonesome Little Thing. 

A noble andbeneficent foundation had this Natural Grad- 
, uated Cure for inherited or acquired Thirst. It was founded 
upon a Rock. It followed Nature’s own laws ; and the 
purely simple motto engraved upon its bill-heads was : 
Similia Si?mlib7is Cnre-ahi’’ t-it ! 


MUS. MURRAY HILL-SMITH LEARNS NOTHING. 


15 


It used no medicines — no force-pumps : only liberal infu- 
sion of that wild and woolly weed, Capillus canis (the hair 
of tbe dog). Dr. Piker, its founder, was a natural doctor. 
Neither his theory nor his practice shocked any other system. 
He said : “I neither buy Chloride, nor try Chloride.” His 
was neither a Gold cure, nor a Silver cure : only a Beer Cure, 
with the trimmings. Science told him the climate was 
bracing. Experience taught that sufferers needed an occa- 
sional bracer : the greater their thirst, the more they needed 
it. That was all his system. The Cure was very popular 
and very fashionable. Without graduated glasses, it grad- 
uated many patients. Sometimes these went back, but then 
they came again. The Cure was, of course, self-sustaining, 
and thus became not only a Gold cure, but a Bi-metallic 
cure also ; so it needed no Bond, except for its spirits. 

The morning after her arrival, Vassarline was dragging 
along, near the top of the Peak, when she met the Bottom- 
less Man. She stopped him. He was so unused to being 
stopped by anyone that he sat down in the snow. 

“ You were not polite last night,” she said, standing over 
him. 

“ I was never considered polite,” he answered, kicking the 
snow off his ears. He got up, turned back and walked with 
her. Strange men always do this at Pikerspeak. 

‘ ‘ I have been here fifteen years. ’ ’ There was a thirsty 
ring in his voice which he quickly corrected with a wicker 
flask. He never offered the girl any, but she understood his 
character thoroughly and regarded his selfishness as the 
proper caper. He went on : 

“ If you want to know anything, I can tell you. I know 
it all. If you admire mountain dew, I can show you the 
quiet Moonshiners, where 5^011 will not be bothered with 
people. I can show you the Beer Fairyland. If you are 
sad and hard up, you will find foaming comfort there ! All 


1 6 SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 

thirst is not unslaked at Pikerspeak. In the silent snow- 
waste, if knowing ones dig the crust away, they find tiny 
baby juglets nestling in their white nursery. If their con- 
tents do not tangle your legs, you may see great rosy clouds 
lining the dull sky. These juglets have been a happiness 
to me : you are not too far gone but they may be a hap- 
piness to you also.” 

“ Nothing can be a happiness to me,” she said, thirstily, 
and her lips smacked drily. “I have had to give up so 
much — my place at the Bierhalle — the picnics — all my 
beer ! ’ ’ 

‘‘You are not the only one,” he replied, roughly. ‘‘All 
things arrange themselves ; we adjust ourselves to all ar- 
rangements. A great deal of headache and nausea — phase 
one ; more headache and nausea — phase two ; less headache 
and nausea — phase three ; no further nausea whatever — 
phase four. I am at four — you are at one. Jump over and 
join me.” 

He strode on, disappearing in the snow-drift. She turned 
back, looking at her boots, wondering if she could make 
the jump. She had alwa3^s looked upon jugs as bottled 
paresis, and paresis meant — no more beer ! But this man 
had obviously taken much, both from schooners and from 
juglets. Now he told her the only sensible course was to 
jump. How could she learn to jump ? All her life long she 
had cultivated the hope to drink beer distinctly better than 
other people’s. When near realizing her ambition, she had 
suddenly broken down. The doctors spoke of nerves, rest, 
change, and more bracing beer. So she was pitying herself 
profoundly as the worst abused person on earth, when some 
one bowed. It was the New York lady of the table d'hote; 
a handsome woman with two young dudelets hanging to her 
train. 

“ I must speak to the little thing,” said Mrs. Murray Hill- 



2 



M/^S. MURRAY HILL-SMITH LEARNS NOTHING. 


19 


Smith. “ I must find out who she is. What a dress ! What 
a hat ! 

“ Naw, I wouldn’t speak to her,” said one of the dudes. 

“ She might ask you to set ’em up. Y’know what a bore 
that is.” 

“Oh, I can snub her if I wish,” she replied; adding to 
Vassarline : “You are evidently betrothed to the Bottom- 
less Man ; he never deigns to talk with any of Us. I am dying 
to know how you caught him.” 

“ I bet you are,” Vassarline replied, with that infinite 
tact her education naturally had given. The society lady 
looked nervous ; changing her tactics : 

“ Your father will miss you ? ” 

“Not to any hurtful extent perhaps,” Vassarline replied, 
with that delicate humor for which she was so justly cele- 
brated. “ Reckon he’s kept too busy with other things.” 

“Ah! yes. What is your father?” Mrs. Murray Hill- ’ 
Smith asked. 

“ I don’t exactly know what he is now,” Vassarline an- 
swered, placidly ; “ but he was a genius. He is dead.” 

Mrs. Hill-Smith began to think the satirical little humorist 
was poking fun at her. A girl would poke fun at anybody 
if she poked her dead father with it. So she rattled on about 
Pikerspeak ; telling of .several bad cases of jim-jams, not for- 
getting several incurables and a few cases of spontaneous 
explosion. 

“ One was a Bostonian,” she said. “ Fancy coming from 
the Hub to explode at this uncultured place. You are evi- 
dently from St. Louis” — she looked at the girl’s boots — 

“ as the French poet says : Ex pede Herculem ! ” 

Vassarline looked amused, but vicious as a broncho colt. 

“You’ve asked two questions,” .she said: “may I ask 
one? Where do 3^ou get the best beer? ” 

Mrs, Murray Hill-Smith grew very hot inside, but pointed 


20 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


with her accustomed coolness to a small log-hut across 
the canon. 

“ I taught her not to interfere with me,” Vassarline said 
as she slumped along. ” She’s a beauty, though ! But for 
her dudes, I’d have asked her to join me in a schooner.” 


IV. 

THE BOTTOMLESS MAN. 

Asper Allachin told Vassarline that she would not be 
friendly with the Boston people at the Bierhaus : 

‘ ‘ They will not care about you ; they never care about 
anybody. You will not care for the New Yorkers, so you will 
be thrown on your own resources.” 

” I haven’t any, except those my aunt keeps in her stock- 
ing,” she answered, naturally confidential. The most reti- 
cent mortals in the world always recognize congenial souls 
on six: hours’ acquaintance. ” I do not think I have any 
brains.” 

“ I never knew a woman who did,” said the Bottomless 
Man, politely. 

“Perhaps your experience has been limited,” she sug- 
gested, with all her infinitely original humor. 

“ Can you read ? ” he asked, abruptly. 

“I am tired of reading,” she answered. ‘Aunt Keziah 
keeps second-hand books in the junk-shop, so I hate ’em.” 

“Bully,” he answered. “If you can’t read, you have a 
chance to learn something — if you live long enough. It is 
wonderful how one who can’t read learns everything. It is 
awe-inspiring ! But if you don’t read, why not occupy your 
mind with earth-worms?” 


THE BOTTOMLESS MAN. 


21 


“ I do not feel any elective affinity for earth-worms.” 

“Nor did I, at first; but they form a science which is 
absolutely absorbing. For years I have been studying their 
Inner Consciousness, and development towards the Higher 
Soulfulness, through their digestive processes. Now I draw 
out their Vital Kssence with a stomach-pump and analyze 
it in retorts, under the microscope. The whole apparatus is 
my own invention, and I think the earth-worms appreciate 
it.” 

‘ ‘ Perhaps I might, too, if you were to lend me a stomach- 
pump.” 

” I could not do that,” he replied, quickl3\ “ I never lend 
anything.” 

“ I felt it,” she said, quietly. “ See how well I know you 
already.” 

“You are not such a fool as you look,” he answered, 
pleased. “ I hate lending things, and hate spending money, 
except on myself. If you linger as I do, you will learn that 
it becomes the Subliniest Nobility to be utterly selfish in 
everything — if one has only made the One Great Sacrifice ! ” 

‘ ‘ And what may that be ? ” She looked so eagerly at him 
that he could see the great thirst fifteen inches down below 
the lips that questioned. So, naturally, he turned and went 
his solitary way, with face hidden in furs and in Mackintosh 
impenetrable. 

He had lived fifteen years at Pikerspeak, and like many 
others he had a mother. The old lady was not there, but 
he did his best duty 'to her by keeping out of her sight. 
Moralists mock us that neuralgia ennobles ; that a left- 
handed acceptation of hinderances cr^^stalizes into frost-forms 
of ennobling purification. Asper Allachin eviden^-ly had 
not neuralgia. At least he did not seem much ennobled. 
But his title of Bottomless Man had been fairly earned ; he 
hugged his triumph to himself when he floored three six- 


22 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


footers by drinking more schooners, at a single session, than 
all of them together. Some few at Pikerspeak inclined to 
the absurd belief that he was not as bad as he looked, but 
they were speedily frowned down ; and the Bottomless Man 
remained the Bottomless Man, with a clean record for the 
championship. 

He lived a life apart. When not in the Bierhalle, or 
digging for earth-worms, most of his time was occupied 
with his stomach-pump and original retort. His earth- 
worms were acknowledged to be the most beautiful, though 
he never showed them to anybody ; only writing descrip- 
tions of their Inner ConscioUvSness and Soulful Aspiration 
for the Weakly Developer^ which lively journal he always 
read at meals. Sometimes he came out of it to ask Vas- 
sarline for her beer, but he never said “good morning,” or 
showed courtesy of any kind. Once the girl’s shawl fell 
to the floor. He stooped and handed it to her, with the 
gentle rebuke ; 

“If 3^011 carry a shawl, why don’t 3^011 have the brains 
to wear it?” 

The Kansas City lady doctor at the next table fainted — 
not because of the remark, but because of the courtesy. 
He had a room on the roof of the Bierhaus, and lived his 
life among his earth-worms. He was neither ugly nor beau- 
tiful, tall nor short, fair nor dark. He was only thin, frail, 
lemon-like and ver3^ much bent ; he had no expression in 
his eyes, but wore cowhide boots — all of which made him 
the ideal hero for the fin-de-siecle romance of Sensitivity. 

The poet at the Omaha table said he was like the snow 
banked about the roof-chimney ; that he must be frozen 
clean inside, spite of the soot on the surface. No one 
loved this snow more than Asper Allachin He loved to 
watch the sparks light on it — now red-golden, now fading 
to congenial grimness. He loved the roof itself and the 


THE CONSTITUENT AND THE TEMPLE OF TRUST. 


23 


dull-red paint on it. He loved the Bierhalle counter, the 
roadside lager-huts, with their great drinkers staggering 
beneath their malt burden. He loved the frozen schooner 
and the costly diamonds in its foam — when another paid for 
it. But he knew, too, where the moonshiner-jugs nestled 
in their white nurseries. He was best authority on moun- 
tain earth -wormery. The same cold hands that dug the 
wrigglers in the springtime dissected them, and drew out 
their Soul Essences with the stomach-pump. But he did 
not love .them the less for that. 

Were these pursuits comfort to him? Did they help him 
forget that he was born with ambition — that he honed to be 
stomach-pumped into one of the marked men of the age ? 

Who — ach Gott ! — who could say ? 


V. 

THE CONSTITUENT AND THE TEMPEE OF TRUST. 

Countless ages ago, when the Fathers of the Republic 
wore pinafores, a country Constituent climbed up the last 
flight of steep steps that lead to the summit of a great Hill. 

There was a domed and winged Temple on the Hill. The 
Constituent had sworn that he would reach it, before police 
prevented him. He knew that the steps were many and 
their rises tough, but he had strong calves and No. ii bro- 
gans. He had lost all sense, but he never lost his grip on 

his Claim. 

“ Even if T bark my shins on the way up,” he said, “still 
there is some chance to file an Ideal Petition.” 

That was how he reasoned. He never had more sense 
than that, and surely that was little enough. 


24 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


And now he was at the West Portico. A Veteran Lob- 
byist met him at the entrance, muttering to himself : 

“Another blooming idiot ! What caji they all expect? “ 

“ Oh ! Veteran Lobbyist, have I at last reached the won- 
derful white Temple of Trust ? I have been trying to get 
to it all my life. But here I am ! 

The Veteran Lobbyist placed his finger gently on his nose. 

“ Listen,” he said shortly. “This is not the Temple of 
Trust. The Big Bosses are not at the top of the Hill, just 
now, but on the Dead Level. The Temple of Trust is in 
their back ofiices, in the narrow streets. Oh, green Con- 
stituent ! ” 

The glow on the Constituent’s nose had faded; his knees 
smote each other loudly. 

“ Can one file a petition here?” he asked, stupidly. 

“ No. Not even Coxey.” 

‘ ‘ Can one descend the back stairs and lunch free in the 
Basement ? ’ ’ 

“No ; not under Reed rules.” 

“ And what is the name of this Temple? ” 

“ It has no good name.” 

“Then I will call it the Temple of Wasted Wind ! ” groaned 
the Constituent. He turned to de.scend, but the Veteran 
Lobbyist caught him by the coat-tail. 

“Hayseeder,” he said, “descend to the Dead Level and , 
tell your brother idiots that the Temple of Trust is in their 
very midst. Its doors are closed. The Politician may enter 
it, the Monopolist may enter it, but not the workers who 
built and paid for it, though they pass it every day.” 

“Ah! if I had known,” groaned the Constituent. “Well, 
a fool is a fool ! ” 

“ Do not linger,” urged the Veteran Lobbyist. “ Though 
you may be too green to burn, you may save others from 
burning. Warn those other idiots you meet on the steps 




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VASSARLINE. 


27 


that they are lunatics to think that the real Temple of Trust 
would be built on a high Hill, to be seen of all men. Tell 
them its foundations are on the Dead Level, where your 
towns are built and your farm-houses ; where the grass 
grows and where men and women are sometimes as green as 
grass — or as dry as hay.” 

The Constituent began his descent. He was hungry and 
thirsty ; he had spent his last nickel on his journey to Illu- 
sion. So it is probable that on his homeward way he lived 
upon Free Lunch. 

Not all Constituents can do that ! 


% 


VI. 

I 

VASSARLINE. 

The high time she was having at Pikerspeak, and the 
cool beer, slowly affected Vassarline, contrary to the Bot- 
tomless Man’s verdict. She enjoyed sitting in the Bierhalle, 
listening to the music of the little German band; but she 
kept very much to herself — and more to the Bottomless 
Man. 

There was a great deal of curiosity about her and him. 
Vassarline always winked her inward eye w^hen she spoke 
to Mrs. Murray Hill-Smith; but though she never “set ’em 
up” herself, no one could say that she ever “stood in for 
their beer.” She never talked to people; but when she 
didn’t, they found her genial. It seemed strange that fun 
should ever come from her — stranger than fiction. So the 
idlers said she seemed always to be thinking of the Bottom- 
less Man. 

She was thinking and learning. 


28 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


Some rough remarks of Asper Allachin impressed her 
profoundly. He said : 

“You have come to a new world, the world of measure- 
ment. You think j^ou are thirsty because your beer has 
been checked. You will learn that many, quite as thirsty 
as yourself, have had their beer graduated to them and 
have stood it, too. You are only a tyro in abstinence. 
What about the professors ? Why if your Aunt Keziah’s 
heel taps have left you any brains at all, look about you 
and learn.” 

All the girl’s life long she had judged people by their out- 
sides — by what they had said and done. Now she measured 
their mental and moral possibilities by those of the earth- 
worm. The good one might do — his benefit to his century 
— must come from the analysis of Possible Sublimities where 
the stomach-pump of circumstance had extracted Inner 
Essentialities. Of course this could only be when they 
were dead, but she had no use for living men, and mortality 
was made only for the Great End. Vassarline saw that she 
had climbed up many steps, only to climb down again. She 
saw what the green Constituent saw. Perhaps it might 
have been different had she seen for Another. But she had 
never had Another. She had simpl}’- taken her beer in her 
own schooner and drank what she could of it. And what 
remained but the froth ? 

Many women asked for dresses and Easter bonnets, for 
French heels and Huyler’s, for rouge and flirtation. She’d 
only asked to be able to take her beer. It was little 
enough to ask. To be wholly cut off from taking beer by 
nerves, was a possibility that had never occured to her. 

It never struck her that in asking for the one thing she 
longed for, she was a.sking for the Greatest Thing. In the 
bitterness of her present beer, she still prided herself that 
she had asked so little. 


VASSARLINE. 


29 


It seems so little to ask,” she cried out of her moral 
nightmare. ” I only want to take a few schooners of beer. I 
would be content to take so few, if I might only take a few 
more ' The laziest walking delegate would laugh at the 
small beer that would content me now ! ” 

Of course she told these soul-longings to the Bottomless 
Man — fearless of the stomach-pump. He answered in his 
mild way : 

“ You think your demands are moderate : what are they ? 
You want brain, muscle and nerves restored so that you can 
go back to beer-jerking — perhaps keep a saloon. Bosh ! You 
are still at phase one. When you arrive at phase four you 
will be quite content to dust your Aunt Keziah’s junk. Bah ! 
if everyone who thinks junk were but content to dust junk, 
what an ideal world this would be!” 

She laughed merrily. His censure tickled her with its 
feathery satire. That she had given him her full confidence 
was natural ; and it was unnatural not to sympathize with 
him even against herself. 

Vassarline became interested in other guests at the Bier- 
haus, especially a little dancer from a St. Louis variety show. 

” I long so to get cured,” she said to Vassarline one day ; 
“not of ni}^ corns, my dear, for that is heredity — my grand- 
mother was a danseuse and my mother also — but of my 
nerves. Life is so bright on the variety stage, and that 
horrid doctor says I must not drink champagne ; that it 
would not be wise. When was I ever wise? Wise people 
do not enjoy champagne. They say it is turnips! ” 

“ Do you know what that little dancer is?” the Bottomless 
Man asked Vassarline one day. 

“ Yes : she is a lady who says you are a brute because you 
never treat her,” she answered, sweetly. “I told her you 
might be a brute, but that you were clever.” 

‘ ‘ Only one man my intellectual equal was ever at Pikers- 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 

peak,” Asper Allachin said, quietly. ‘ ‘ He has gone away 
no, I believe he died. That’s the bore of finding people 
clever ; they always die.” 

He had a tonic effect on her ; she took him like her beer, 
for the bitter in him. It offset the bitter in her own soul. 

Did the Bottomless Man know the good he was doin ? 
Did he realize that to the Sublime moralities lurking perdu 
in this ugly little earth-worm, he was the analyst and the 
stomach-pump in one — metaph3^sical twins ! 


VII. 

THE STORY MOVES ON, THANK GOODNESS ! 

.Vassarline was playing whisky-poker with the Phila- 
delphia professor. He was only a professor, not a practicer, 
for the girl was winning the beer. Mrs. Murray Hill Smith 
approached, with a generous gorgeousness of manner, say- 
ing : 

“ Miss Stryker, strange as it may appear to you, I have 
an idea. Would you go and nurse Mr. Hill-Smith this 
evening? He has the shakes very badly.” 

“I will,” said Vassarline, quietly; “I know how it is 
myself.” 

” Dear Murray is so unselfish,” Mrs. Hill-Smith went on, 
placidly. “The doctors prescribe ‘tonics’ for both of us, 
and we get ours direct from the importer. He will not let 
me drink mine, but drinks them for me. I know I am very 
selfish to let him— But there is Mr. Doodley calling, and I 
can not keep the sleighing party waiting for a trifle like 
Murray’s shakes.” 

“ Of course you could not,” Vassarline replied, in her 





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THE STORY MO YES ON, THANK GOODNESS! 


31 


innocent, jocular way. “ There is no telling how much 
shaking a husband can stand when he has a wife like you.’^ 

Mr. Murray Hill-Smith was lying on the door-mat when 
Vassarline went in. A look of horrible suspicion swept his. 
drawn face and he uttered a curdling yell, way up in 
Comanche G : 

“ Get out ! I know you. She paid you to come and. 
divvy the tonics ! She paid you ! ” < 

The words seemed rude enough, but there was no rude- 
ness in the manner. He only tied himself up in a true 
lover’s knot on the door-mat, looking at her from between 
his knees. 

“ I am not paid,” she said, gently. “ Besides, I don’t care 
for tonics; I dote on earth-worms.” 

Then she carefully untied the knot, straightened out his 
legs, and gave him a full tumbler of tonic. He whooped' 
a gentle yell of relief. Presently he had a few spasms^ 
Then he said, jerkily : 

“That’s better. I’m tired of paid visitors. One gets 
weary of any kind ; that’s all.” 

There was a jim in every word he spoke ; a jam in ever^r 
think he thought. 

“ Oh to lie here and tonic myself alone, while she sleighs 
with the dudelets ! Oh ! the loneliness of it ! ” 

“ Shall I mix for you ? ” she asked, sweetly. 

“Are you one of my wife’s friends?” he asked again,, 
suspiciously. 

“Would I be here if I were?” she answered, with one of 
her wide smiles — ‘ ‘ But she’s a lovely woman, all the same ! ’ " 

‘ ‘ Lovely ! Well I .should say .she was,” he muttered, 
reaching for the jug of tonic. “ She’s splendid in furs — when 
you stroke ’em the right way ” The .smile faded from his 
face : “Splendid but — tough ! Whoop ! Hi — yie — iei !” 

He tied himself up into a sailor’s knot this time, winking: 
at her from between his shoulders. 


34 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


“Come, now,” Vassarline said, gently, as she untied him 
again and straightened his legs on the mat. “You are sur- 
rounded with everything a fellow can want. What shall I 
mix for you ? ” 

No one does mix what I want,” he answered, squirmily. 
“ My tastes are not their tastes. I don’t suppose you would 
care to taste what I want to drink.” 

“ Well, just try me,” she said, cheerily. “ Make your own 
choice.” 

She talked to him in a manner that would have filled up 
the Bottomless Man ; not of earth-worms and stomach-pumps, 
but of men and women, places and things she knew. There 
was a Sunday newspaper in everything she said. She knew 
Chicago, and could tell him about the Jewish butchers and 
Chinese joints ; about her experiences at the World’s Fair 
restaurants. She had been everywhere in the Midway with 
a foreign exhibitor. She knew the Turk that hypnotized 
the Typewriter. 

“You’re just a little team ! ” he said as she was leaving — 
“ a whole team, and a little red dog under the w^agon. You 
are only a bit of a thing yourself ; but Jove ! you know how 
to shake a fellow out of the shakes as if you had been weaned 
on them. Say,^nay I call you Little Red Dog ? ” 

A smile of ineffable inscrutability lit her wan little face, 
vieing with her nose-hue. 

“ It is the very name I have longed for all my life,” she 
replied ; and she crept noiselessly over the door-mat. 

That night Mrs. Murray Hill-Smith met Vassarline in 
the Bierhalle. 

“We had no end of a high old time,” she said, in her 
grand society way. “So sorry you didn’t come. By the 
way, thank you so much for untying Murray out of his 
knots. Poor fellow ! It’s rather unique to see him in the 
jim-jams, isn’t it? ” 


VASSARL/NE PROSES. 


35 


VIII. 

VASSARLINK PROSKS. 

After that night Vassarline went to see Mr. Murray Hill- 
Smith before each meal. She took him as a vicarious tonic 
— a sort of moral appetizer and mental digester. Bridget, 
the stalwart and rubican chambermaid of the Cure, fre- 
quently mentioned to Vassarline that his jims were getting 
more jammy rapidly. Everyone recognized this except his 
wife. This lady was too thoroughly pleased with herself 
not to be still more pleased with the admiration of her 
dudes. The Pikerspeak beer had got into her head: and it 
is a fact universally acknowledged by science, that its 
glorious foam banishes from the mind all little incon- 
veniences such as duty, devotion, honesty and religion. 

Of course Vassarline confided her woes on this subject to 
the Bottomless Man. He shrugged his shoulders and 
said ; 

‘ ‘ Those things are bad here, but not worse than every 
where else ; only here, we are an accumulated ass and ai 
such wag tremendous ears. For myself, I enjoy selfishness 
and neglect you should do so likewise. If men tie them< 
selves up in knots, let them stay knotted, and there is at 
end of it. I know you keep unknotting Mr. Hill-Smith. 
Better keep away from him.” 

“You speak like a Congressman,” she answered, pleasantly 
— “ with the quintessence of Protectiveness : but I don’t 
Trust a word you say.” 

“You dear old girl,” he replied, “we are not living in a 
cookery-book issued by a swell Church Guild ; only in a 
greasy pass-book from the grocer. You are a nuisance, only 
when you worry about other people. Mount some hobby — 


36 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


earth-worms, or the cholera bacillus — and let people neglect 
each other, get the jim-jams and die.” 

“ There are days,” she said, “when I could box your ears. 
This is one of them ; so I’ll leave you before I do it ! ” 

She turned and walked rapidly to Mr. Murray Hill-Smith’s 
door-mat. She found him knotted up in a combined, com- 
minuted tangle. She soon straightened him out with a 
tonic. 

“ Little Red Dog,” he said, after a wild whoop or two, “ I 
have something on my mind. You’re not the sort to laugh 
when I say I have a mind. I know you are cleverer than 
my wife, and have more religion than a parson, if you do 
wear No. 9 boots and a shocking bad hat.” 

Vassarline smiled a gratified smile, and said : 

“ Go on; I like this immensely.” 

“You are a true type of heredity ; I can see it in your 
nose,” he continued, swallowing the tonic she handed him. 
“ You must have thought a great deal about shakes and the 
jams ; I suppose your grandmother had ’em. I never 
thought at all; just had ’em, natural-like. Does it matter. 
Little Red Dog? If it does, it is too late now for me to 
begin to think. But tell me what you think ; if j^ou believe 
we get another chance if we brace up and get cured ? Or, 
is it all ended in this little humbug of a Graduated Cure ? 
I never bothered about metaphysics, or anything but tonics, 
before ; but now that J am at the Cure, and the shakes are 
getting worse, I kind o’ wonder. As for the Keeley Cure, 
I never cared to try it. Is it a humbug, Little Red Dog?” 

“ How do I know,” she queried, gently ; “ how does any- 
one know ? People say they get cured ; but it is all a great 
mystery — nothing but a mystery. Everything about it can 
be but a guess. People have gone back on it, guessing — 
they have broken their oaths, but it still remains a mystery.” 


VASSARLINE PROSES. 


37 


“ But tell me what you think, I^ittle Red Dog. But don’t 
be hard on me ; remember I’m a nervous brute.” 

His eagerness for her answer brought on preliminary 
shakes ; but before he could knot, she braced him with a 
tonic. Then she answered : 

“ If I were you I would not try the Bi-chlor. Just make 
up what mind you have to get better, if the doctors here 
give you a chance. One can’t do more than that, if it be 
heredity, or only imbibed cussedness. That’s the way I look 
at it : what Nature gives all of us is a new chance — oodles 
of chances! Then if we don’t do better, what’s the use of 
fretting. It may be heredity after all. Who knows but the 
first mother gave Adam cider in The Garden. Spite of all 
the water in the flood, Noah got enough of t’other thing 
to tie him up in knots just like you. That’s heredity ; all 
the little Sheras and Hams are doing it to-day. Even little 
Japhet smokes cigarettes. Eife is pretty tough, anyway; 
you and I recognize that. If there be some Intelligence 
greater than ours. It will not find it hard to understand bet- 
ter than you and I do that life is very tough ; and It will be 
very much surprised — not because we are not better, but 
because we are not much worse ! * So I would not worry 
about the jams if I were you ; I should just go on having ’em, 
and taking tonics and tying myself up in knots. Then let 
the Higher Intelligence figure it out for Itself that you 
couldn’t have done anything else that would not have been 
a great deal worse than you have done. Just make up your 
mind that you are built that way ; and, if you get leaky, let 
the Intelligence re-shingle you if It wants to. If It doesn’t 
want to, it is plain that it is best for you to remain leaky, 
and that trying to re-shingle yourself when the Intelligence 
didn’t re-shingle you, would just be flying in the face of 
Light and Faith.” 


■^'Literal quotation from original. 


38 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


“ If that is what you think, lyittle Red Dog,” he answered,, 
“it must be true, right up to date. Then it doesn’t matter 
about doctors and nerves and jims and Bi-chlors and preach- 
ers and reformation? Then give me a tonic.” 

“I don’t think it matters,” .she said, mixing him a stiff 
one. “ I have never thought it mattered — but maybe that 
was heredity. What does matter is to take ’em gradually ; 
not to come down like Jim Corbetts on’m. Who are we, an>^ 
of us, to set up for Jim Corbetts ? ” 

“And I am not to come down like a Jim Corbett on my 
shakes,” he repeated, staring. “I wonder if I have taken 
’em gradual ? ” 

“ I believe you have not,” she answered, tenderly. “ If 
you haven’t, its heredity.” 

“ I think I could sleep. Little Red Dog,” he said, wearih^ 

“ If you can’t, it’s a wonder after all that,” she whispered, 
softly. Then she stepped noiselessly over the door-mat. 


IX. 

“when one has made the o. g. s.” 

There was a suicidal explosion at the Bierhaus one after- 
noon. 

A Washingtonian, Lobbyjohn, had received rather bad 
news from his congressional claim ; and in a fit of the 
blues he swallowed too much mountain dew. Bridget, the 
red-handed chambermaid, had been innocent accomplice 
before the fact. He was lying upon the floor when she 
carried up his afternoon schooner ; and he asked her to hand 
him a little white jug out of the cupboard. She had done 
so, and he had said — mildly enough : 



“ Oh, dear sister, if you were oney an earth-worm ! Then Asper could draw out your 

Mortal Anguish with his patent Stomach-pump! ” 



‘^fVH£N ONE HAS MADE THE O. G. S.” 


41 


^‘That is all. You can drink the beer.” 

This was startlingly unusual ; but free beer was not to be 
sneezed at, and Bridget determined to secrete that schooner 
before Hans her non-proposing little expressman — came 
for his afternoon courtship. 

” Whist ! ” she said to herself. “ Whin oi’m dhry oi can’t 
git th’ beer, so oi’ll dhrink dis beer, dhry nor nuther!” 

Bridget was the shpat of a philosopher. She was black- 
ing the Boston dude’s boots when she heard a terrific explo- 
sion. She flew there, to find Vassarline collecting the frag- 
ments of the rash and unfortunate Lobbyjohn. The little 
white jug was empty ; the Washingtonian had miscalculated 
his resistance. 

When Bridget saw that, she well knew that she had 
innocently caused the fragmentary catastrophe. She turned 
as white as her complexion allowed, but she only howled : 

“ Oh ! wirra ! phawtiver could a’ dun it? An’ th’ gintil- 
man gie’d me his afthernoon beer. An’ oi dhrank it ! ” 

Vassarline took the great form of the girl in her thin 
arms, sister-fashion. 

“ Come to my room,” she said, “and sit upon my lap. I 
will make you a toddy, Chicago fashion. You must drink 
it hot and it will correct the beer.” 

But Bridget would not be comforted, until Vassarline said ; 

“ Oh ! dear sister, if you were only an earth-worm ! 
Then Asper could draw out your Mortal Anguish with his 
patent stomach-pump. Yet, be at peace ! You still can put 
the empty beer bottle upon the poor man’s grave.” 

Then, touched by the Sublime Comfort, the smiling 
Bridget went back to the Bostonian’s boots ; and the light 
in her eye was less of despair than of triumph when, an hour 
later, she showed Hans the empty beer bottle. 

At supper Vassarline told the Bottomless Man the sad 
story of the explosion. He had been washing red earth- 


42 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


worms out of the roof-snow and had heard nothing of it. 
He looked up from the Developer long enough to answer : 

Well, there’s one mouth less and more beer for those 
left” 

‘ ‘ I think you say those things rather from habit than 
from thirst,” the girl answered, severely. 

Everybody at the table d'hote and at the Bierhalle was 
talking of the explosion. Was it really that Asper Alla- 
chin’s was the only soul not shocked by it, Vassarline 
thought. She — she alone — had seen the lovely soul-flowers 
nestling beneath the surface snow of his rude speech and 
gruff manner. Now," these were only unloveliness and lead. 
Had she, indeed, stuffed her dummy with straw attributes 
of her own creation, and then begun to love the straw? 

She hardened her heart against him, as the Pharaoh of 
old. Then she looked at his frail, bent form and his red 
nose, and her heart melted at once. It was only her heart, 
not her head. Are not crooked men with red noses and 
bad manners resistless to all heroines of Metaphysical 
Romance ? 

While she thought thus, Asper Allachiu answered 
gravely : 

“It is neither habit nor thirst ; it is principle. I told 
you once that selfishness was the Sublime Desideratum 
when one has made the One Great Sacrifice ! ” 

“ Oh ! how I have longed,” she cried, gazing at him with 
eager, curious eyes, “how I have yearned to know what 
you meant by the One Great Sacrifice.” 

” Come out into the night where my Great Soul has elbow- 
room,” the Bottomless Man answered, “and I will instruct 
you.” 

Hatless, wrapless — even leaving part of her beer — Vassar- 
line rose and passed into the chill night air. What are furs 
and arctics to the woman warmed by the fever of curiosity ! 


“ WHEN ONE HAS MADE THE O. G. S." 


43 


Pausing only long enough to empty her forgotten schooner, 
Asper Allachin followed her. 

“ Now ! — quick ! ” she gasped. Her words were a pair of 
midsummer pants. 

He looked steadily at the lights of the Bierhaus — listening 
to the chink of its glasses — for nineteen leaden-heeled seconds. 
Then he said slowly : 

“The One Great Sacrifice is living one’s life out, when the 
one thing that made life worth living has been given up for 
the sake of another. Not all its pains and all its pleasures 
else — not all its duties and responsibilities — count for one 
straw, when this has been wrenched away. Then living is 
one long, tedious dying, with no Funeral Director in sight. 
If' one has made this O. G. S., all else must be forgiven 
him!” 

He paused one suspenseful moment, rushed into the Bier* 
halle alone, and came back loosening the last button of his 
vest. Then he went on : 

“ I have made this Sacrifice. The greatest thing I had to 
give up, I gave up. More the Infinite Demand could not 
have required of me I ” 

“ Indeed — indeed it could not ! ” she gasped. “ But what 
was it?” 

“ Freedom will come at last,” he went on, as though to 
himself. ‘ ‘ Some day I shall be free. The death of my 
great-grandaunt will sign my Emancipation Proclamation. 
She is old— very, very old : she is rich — very, very rich ! 
If I were to die she would change her will, or would have 
no heir to make a will for, which comes to the same thing. 
She is a crank on Scheidam Schnapps. So am 1 1 So was 
my great-great-grandsire, her father. Her will has a codicil 
declaring her heir shall drink no gin during her lifetime. 
So I am waiting — only waiting. A Bottomless Man, I 
vainly try to fill up on beer — on paltry moonshiners’ jug- 


44 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


lets ! ’ ’ He spoke slowly, calmly ; but there was a far-off- 
ness of woe in his voice that agonized his listener — ‘ ‘ I am 
waiting. It may be weeks, months, years ! But I know 
how to wait. If I have learned nothing else, I have learned 
to wait. It will come ! I shall be free ; and then — ! ” 

Vassarline had unconsciously put her arms around him. 
Her face was to his the nearness of day -before-yesterday’s 
woe. 

“ And then?” she echoed, with wanness of eager pain. 

“ And then I shall follow the Washingtonian’s example,” 
he said, deliberately. 

Vassarline had let her arms slip down the Bottomless 
Man. Now she crumpled in a quivering mass at his feet, 
shivering. 

“You are cold, you little goose,” he said, grimly. “ You 
are shivering.” 

“Was I?” She rose quickly, staring at him. “Where 
there is a hope, there is always a shiver ! ” 

He looked at her, and, even in the gloaming, saw all the 
red upon the little nose. 


X. 


the bottomless man asks usury. 

The Washingtonian, Lobbyjohn, was buried in the little 
beer garden behind the Bierhaus ; Bridget’s empty bot- 
tle was inverted upon him ; and there the matter ended. 
It was but natural that it should, when the man had ended 
himself ; and when the Boston colony, the Kansas City con- 
tingent, the New York exclusives and the Cincinnati clique, 
were all obliged to attend to each other’s business so indus- 


THE BOTTOMLESS MAN ASKS USURY. 


45 


triously. It was a most gossipy and harmful community, 
with two exceptions — the Bottomless Man engrossed with 
his earth worms and stomach-pumps, and Vassarline en- 
grossed with the Bottomless Man. 

The girl was content to take what the hour brought, and 
the hour brought various things ; whisky-poker with* the 
Philadelphia professor, or posturings with the shriveled-up 
little Delsartian teacher. Or the hour brought moral dis- 
cussion with the St. Touis variety dancer ; or efforts to 
educate her poodle, which a few years ago Vassarline had 
considered trivial. Now, with her developed imagination, 
they took their rightful place in the new graded school of 
the Importances. Some natures learn nothing, harder and 
longer than others learn everything ; but the Grand Impor- 
tances of existence are to them the nothingnesses of hum- 
drum — those nothingnesses which Philosophy in the centuries, 
analyzing human Soulfulness through the abstraction by 
the stomach-pump of experienced experiment, is apt to 
overlook ; but which, nevertheless, make the Philosopher, 
equally as the Dude, less of a humanism and more of an 
earth-worm abstraction. 

And Vassarline, hitherto occupied with so-called intellect- 
ualities — with grand problems of great world-movements — 
was just beginning to educate poodles. Or, sometimes the 
hour brought its own thoughts. The great German has 
said: “Who drinks midnight, thinks midnight; who 
drinks beer, thinks beer ! ” So Vassarline found herself 
constantly thinking of the Bottomless Man ; always with 
sympathy for his thirst, often in sorrow for his Sacrifice — 
sometimes with longing to kick him. 

“ Well,” hesaid in one of their walks, “ have you recovered 
from the explosion of the Washingtonian? ” 

“And you?” she asked. 

“Oh! Tm all right,” he answered, calmly. 


“ I rested 


46 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


badly last night : slept on my back and dreamed of you. 
Odd too, when I never think of you while awake. It must 
have been the Welsh rarebit.” 

“ Oh ! the loneliness of that thought ! ” Vassarline sighed. 

“Everybody is lonely,” he answered, “but only great 
intellects know it. I am lonely this minute.” 

“ That knowledge must come like a revelation,” she said. 
“ It is so hard to explain ourselves. When you have yearned 
to say something which burned in your heart, have you not 
noticed in the listener that utter ‘ do-come-out-of-that ’ 
look which gags you ? That is the supreme moment when 
the soul looks into the mirror of its own loneliness, and then 
they are twins ! ” 

Asper Allachin looked up at her : 

“You little thing! You put things straight from the 
shoulder, as if you had felt.” 

“ Most people feel,” she answered, gloomily. 

“Nothing of the sort!” he retorted. “Most people 
neither think nor feel, except when they think they have a 
feeling, and then they feel they think it.” 

“ Sublime ! ” the girl exclaimed. “ But what does it mat- 
ter? ” 

“It can not matter,” he said, almost fiercely, “when 
there is no matter, any more than there is any thought or anj" 
feeling. We are what we think we are ; so, as we do not 
think, we are nothing. If we feel that we are matter, it is 
only because we think we feel ; ergo, if thought is nothing 
and we feel nothing, then is matter nothing and there is 
nothing but nothingness. For instance, take nothing from 
an abstraction — which itself is nothing — naught remains 
but a feeling which we think w^e feel, but do not, because 
we do not think. This proves that matter is thought and 
thought is nothing but a feeling that we think, when we do 
not. Hence, everything is nothing multiplied by itself” 




“ Don’t rise,” he said, in his usual delicate way, ” I’ve been there myself ! ’* 


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THE BOTTOMLESS MAN ASKS USURY. 


49 


The girl looked at him in admiring awe. 

“I had never dreamed,” she gasped, “that you were a 
Christian Scientist ! But speaking of dreams ” — she smiled 
archly — “ tell me yours about me.” 

I can not be bothered about that now,” he answered, 
politely. “Besides it was nothing— only about you, and 
caused by a Welsh rarebit; and if there is no matter, you 
are nothing and there is no Welsh rarebit. So the dream, 
like everything else, is no matter. Come up to my beauti- 
ful room on the roof,” he added, suddenly—” I want to loan 
you something.” 

You ! she cried, in genuine surprise. ” Y^ou give any- 
body anything ! ” 

“ I said loan, not give,” he answered, quickly. ” Besides, 
this loan will pay me ten-fold in your failures. You will 
try, and not succeed, until I show you. You have noticed 
I am a miser in knowledge.” 

“As in everything,” she sighed. 

“ Kindly not interrupt me,” he said, testily. ” I want my 
cent per cent usury on knowledge. Remember, I have made 
the O. G. S. !” 

They were at the door of his beautiful room on the roof ; 
looking at the lovely view, as he spoke. When they were 
inside, he said curtly : 

” Sit down. I will make you some toddy. There are the 
stomach-pumps, but don’t touch them.” 

She watched him preparing the toddy ; he did everything 
so unique, this Bottomless Man. He put his bath-towel on 
a box, to serve as a table-cloth, and a tiny bottle of earth- 
worms formed the centerpiece. He had no tumblers, but 
polished up two retorts with a newspaper. Then he boiled 
water with a sun -glass. 

Well take it hot,” he said. “No one makes toddies 
like me ; but the thunder-cloud of strong emotion rested 


50 SC//00JV£:i?S THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 

Upon his crag-like brow — “Oh! if it were only Scheidam 
Schnapps ! ’ ’ 

After toddy they began inspection of new §tomach-pumps 
and retorts and microscopes ; and lovely little earth-worms, 
red and black, squirming in amber mud — the living bouquet 
of Science. At last Vassarline said : 

“ I have a moderate amount of patience, but you seem to 
test it all.” 

He took the hint. Several times he looked at his old 
stomach-pump, then at his companion. Twice he took up 
the old instrument: turned as if to speak to her. Then he 
changed his mind, staring at the wriggling earth-worms. 
His eyes were full of tears. 

And Vassarline felt she thought that he thought he felt. 

The Bottomless Man’s decision was made. Buoyed by 
his Grand Philosophy he knew that if he thought he grieved 
he must be mistaken. He said abruptly : 

Don’t worry about loneliness and fret about metaphysics. 
Leave theosophy and take up earth-worms instead. Here, 
I’ll lend you my old stomach-pump.” 

“ Do you mean it?” she gasped, in wonder. 

“I think I mean it,” he answered ; “ but as no one ever 
means anything that he thinks, because he never thinks, of 
course I don’t. Anyway, take it. The valves don’t work 
and the tube leaks. That doesn’t matter ; take these earth- 
worms. They are dry, old ones, with nothing in them ; so, 
for them this pump is just as good as my newest one. 
Now, don’t you say again that I never lend anything.” 

Climbing down from the roof, Vassarline met Bridget and 
confided the great good fortune that had befallen her. The 
massive handmaid slipped a suspicious looking flask under 
her ample apron, and there was a strong aroma on her 
words : 

“ Misther Allachin lind anythin’ ? Holy Mither ! ” 


WHICH MAKES MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 51 

The Bottomless Man stood in his beautiful roof-room ; a 
long-after-sunset glory upon his face. 

“I am half sorry that I—,” he began. “Well, it will 
keep her from fretting and boring me and thinking she 
thinks she feels. But I hope she won’t hurt that stomach- 
pump ! ” 


XL. 

WHICH MAKES MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

“You may have an affinity for other things, though I 
doubt iV’ Asper Allachin had said to Vassarline ; “ but you 
certainly have none for earth-worms.” 

“Whose fault is it?” she retorted, snappishly. “The 
worms were wriggleless and the stomach-pump had no 
valves.” 

Bah ! you have a crooked eye as well as a red nose,” 
he answered, hotly. ” I have told you that several times.” 

“You certainly have ! ” 

The little nose flushed crimson from temper ; he had not 
the tact to see that it was hereditary. Then she stalked 
away. If she had had any science, she would have punched 
his head. As she had not, she did the next best thing; she 
went and sat in the Bierhalle, listening to the little German 
band. 

“ Well I’ll be dog-goned ! ’’ said the Bottomless Man. 

He mounted slowly to his beautiful room on the roof. 
When he got there he rapidly swallowed four schooners. 
Then he said again : 

” Well ! — I’ll be — dog-goned !” 

Then he proceeded to abstract Soul Essence from earth- 
worms ; but they seemed to have no Higher Consciousness 


52 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


in their digestive processes, under the microscope that night. 
He threw the cadavers out of the window, put on his spike- 
tail coat, a white silk vest and a pair of plush knickerbockers. 
Then he looked in the glass and once more remarked to his 
reflected self : 

“ Well, I’ll be — dog-goned ! ” 

Descending the stairs, he met Bridget with her huge red 
arms full of empty schooners. She flattened herself against 
the wall, as well as her ample construction would permit, 
and let him pass. The maid noticed the dresscoat and the 
plush. She winked to herself and muttered : 

“ Holy Mither ! But he’s shure goin’ shparkin’ ! ” 

Meanwhile Asper Allachin entered the Bierhalle. He 
noticed where Vassarline was sitting alone, pouting; and 
he chose a hard bench across the room, sitting down hard 
upon it. He looked very much like a dog that longed to 
steal a sheep, but hadn’t the pluck. Now and then he 
looked over to see if she noticed him. He hated music and 
he hated the Germans worse. But that was not music, and 
those Germans were naturalized ; so he had double reasons 
to stay. 

It grew late. They had played “McGinty,” “After the 
Ball,” “Johnny Git Yer Gun,” “ Annie Rooney ” — in fact, 
the National Anthems of all nations. Some of the audience 
had gone out ; so had some of the lamps. At last the 
musicians followed, and still Vassarline did not move. 

And still Asper Allachin sat looking like the sheep- 
stealing dog that daren’t. He could not even tell if she 
had seen him at all ; but, under his knickerbockers, he felt 
he thought that his calves grew numb with cold. 

“The little thing!” he thought, tenderly. “I have 
stunned her by my cruelty.” 

He tiptoed gently across and sat by her. The day was 
breaking in the east. The shrimp-pink glow of dawn- 


WHICH MAKES MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 


53 


coming pierced the window and played about her nose, 
flushing it as a tender halo. He sat beside her quite still. 
In that solemn light he looked more like the pluckless, 
sheep-stealing dog than ever. He dared not look at her ; 
but he reached out his hand and touched the damp, limp 
one lying on her lap. 

Then from her breast came a solemn sound that was not a 
sigh, still less a groan. He withdrew his hand, bounced 
from his chair and stared. 

“Well!— I willh^ d ! I!” 

How the Bottomless Man might have finished, even his 
own introspection could not have hinted. But at the 
moment of crisis Vassarline woke up. 

“Where am I?” she said, nightmarily. “Goodness! 
what time is it ? ’’ 

“ You little thing ! You are cold,” he answered, rele* 
vantly. ‘‘Come up to the counter and have some brandy.” 

“That is a very truthful statement of yours,’’ she said, 
yawning. “ I will join you if you let me pay for both nips.” 

“You certainly shall,” he answered, briskly; “I have 
never supposed you would like yours paid for, any more 
than I would object to your paying for mine.” 

The sun was rising when the sleepy night barman gave 
them their brandy. Without, the early w^armth kissed the 
snow-peaks, that blushed back from their cold hearts. The 
great, looming Bierhaus was full of snoring sleepers. The 
crisp morning air was full of Nature’s cadences. The pure, 
soft light was full of peace. 

Were they full, too ? ^ 


54 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


X 

XTI. 

A BETROTHAL, AT EAST. 

He had loved her so patiently, in his phlegmatic, Weiss- 
beery way. It was only the square thing to her, Bridget 
thought, that Hans should tell her really where she stood 
in his affections. She had certainly given him signs 
enough for years, and he had never objected — taking oppor- 
tunities she made for him — to kissing her behind the pantry 
door. Kisses were all Well enough, Bridget thought ; but 
then her girlhood was drawing to a close, and she wanted 
to tell him how she longed for a home of her own. Then, 
perhaps, she might lose him altogether. It would not do 
now to let him escape a single day longer, for possibly some 
more direct girl would gobble him up. So the gigantic 
housemaid armed herself with all the heel-taps in the 
schooners and laid in wait for the little German express 
driver. 

At last he came, in the gloaming, tipping slyly through 
the pantry door. 

“Ye’re late, bad ’cess ter ye ! ” she said, cheerily. 

‘ ‘ Gut heil ! ’ ’ he answered, sheepishly. He looked around 
wistfully, missing something of the warmth of his usual 
reception. But the foaming schooner, filled from the heel- 
taps of the boarders, was not there. He must have twisted 
his lips curiously at the disappointment, for Bridget cried 
bluntly : 

. “ Yer needn’t be givin’ th’ sign. Oi’ve no call behint th’ 
dhoore th’ night.” 

“Ihaf nod been dinking off meinselv,” the little Hans 
answered, crestfallen. “I haf someding make me dissa- 
poind him. Now, I haf saidt all. Leb wohl, lubes Fraulein 
Brigidr 


A BETROTHAL, AT LAST. 


55 


But he did not go, only stood silent and adipose, his fat 
hand gently stroking the nether protuberance of his vest- 
flap. And Bridget went on polishing the beer glasses, 
holding them as if to admire their luster. Ah ! sly sex. 
Ah ! wary Bridget ! In reality she was hiding her inspec- 
tion of the little Hans. Slowly he turned, passing through 
the pantry door. It was nearly closed on him, when he 
paused. 

“ Whist ! ” Bridget had cried. 

He turned and looked at her vacantly. She was silent a 
moment. He again turned to go. 

“ Phwat was it ye sid ter me ? ” she asked, modestly. 

“ Ach ! I haf not saidt noding,” he answered. 

“ Shure ye haven’t ! ” she retorted, briskly. “ An’ yer’.ve 
been shparkin’ me th’ year. Oi’m thinkin’ it do be toime 
yer did ! ” 

He must have understood the hint. 

Two hours’ continuous ringing of his bell failing to bring 
Bridget and his beer, the Bottomless Man went down to the 
pantry himself. 

He discovered Hans .seated upon Bridget’s knee and 
looking like a flaxen doll in the hands of a lady medical 
student. 

“Don’t rise,” he said, in his usual delicate way, “I’ve 
been there myself.” 

Asper Allachin hurried away, humming low to himself 
that touching chanson of the lonely: “They’re all getting 
married but me.” 


56 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


XIII. 

SCHOONERS THAT BUMP AS THEY PASS. 

Many of the boarders at the Bierhaus had gone slowly 
downward ; they had descended to their cities again. The 
Bierhalle was still filling, in the evening. There were cases 
of heredity that ever}^ day were losing some of their grip. 
This caused much annoyance to the Bottomless Man. “An 
American bierhalle was,” he said, “like America herself; 
it was the haven of hereditaments of all nations.” 

There were other signs that the season was closing. The 
beer had fallen off in quality and was now served with more 
of the foam. The incurables, who were wedded to it for 
better or worse, became impatient. 

The Boston dudelets had gone back to Beacon street ; the 
little St. Louis dancer and her poodle had gone to Burope 
with Mr. Murray Hill-Smith, who had been advised to try 
the waters of Humbug in Hesse-Nassau. His handsome 
wife had returned to New York to collect a fresh museum 
of dudelets for summer exhibition. The Philadelphia pro- 
fessor had taken his poker-chips away for Brotherly Love ; 
the New England schoolmarm had eloped with the night 
barman. 

All this loneliness struck Vassarline hard between the 
eyes. It was the evening before her own departure. She 
had gone down to the Bierhalle with Asper Allachin. She 
sat sipping her beer, as she complained : 

“Such indifference at parting astonishes me. lean not 
understand it.” 

“That is because you are a little duck,” he replied, finish- 
ing his schooner; and, as an. afterthought, hers also. “ If 
you understood the human stomach, you would know that 
it leaves us little time for interest in other people ; they for 









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SCHOONERS THAT BUMP AS THEY PASS. 


59 


• 

US and we for them are as pepsinless as earth-worms. If we 
convince ourselves that we are anything to anyone, sud- 
denly one day we find that we are ‘ not in it.’ If we are 
fools, we are wounded ; if wise, we realize it proper that all 
people should care only for themselves. The sooner one 
learns this Beautiful Truth the better.” 

“ And you,” she asked, ” have you learned this B. T. ? ” 

” Tong ago. I believe it was born in me. I have arrived 
at the Calm Unconsciousness of a cabbage. I own that I 
have neglected deep plowing in cultivating my cabbage- 
patch. Now it is too late ; the weeds are heart high.” 

“ How congenial we are!” she cried. “Neither have I 
sub-soiled my Soul-cabbages.”^ 

“ It would be more difficult for you,” he said, yawning. 
” Your soul is shallower than mine. All women’s are.” 

“I know all about the political women,” she said, 
thoughtfully. “I know everything about the Christian 
Science women, the female suffragists and the W. C. T. U. 
And then, think of the women doctors ! ” 

“ Were I unfortunate enough to be married,” he answered, 
“ I should object to my wife getting up in the night to visit 
any man, professionally or otherwise.” 

“That is because you have thought nothing about mar- 
riage.” 

“ Fortunately, no. ‘ If ignorance is bliss, ’twere folly to 
be wed!’” 

“You reason from marriages of ten years ago,” she per- 
sisted; “not from the marriages of to-day. Then they were 
‘for better or worse — till death do us part.’ Now they are 
for better — or a divorce. You see I know all about women.” 

“The one kind you do not seem to know about,” he said, 
“is the real flesh-and-blood woman.” 

“Why should I? She is merely a natural product. As a 
Reformer, what .should I have to do with her? vShe is use- 


6o 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


less to Progress, to Science and the Arts. As a natural 
product, I leave her to Nature’s uses.” 

They were silent a moment, drinking two schooners. 
Then she said suddenly : 

“ And I go home to-morrow. How I shall miss you ! ” 

“ Possibly. I shall miss you — at first,” he answered. “ But 
the human earth-worm adjusts itself easily to altered Diges- 
tive Processes. Soon we drop into the state of Habit, which 
Religion now nicknames Resignation.” 

She looked at him j^earningly. A great longing came 
into the end of her nose. Perhaps she thought of his great- 
grandaunt who was very, ver>^ old — and very, ver}' rich. 

“ And these every day meetings — every” night drinkings- — 
every hour interchange of Grand Original ideas goes for 
nothing? ” 

“That is about the size of it,” he answered. “We only 
think them all ; and as all is nothing, the thoughts we think 
we think come to nothing. Ex nihilo nihil Jit., the Persian 
poet said truly.” 

She bitterl}” recalled his words while she was packing her 
grip. The many foamy schooners the}^ had had together 
were to count for nothing : for nothing, her patience at his 
boorishness — under his serious talk! The pett}” trifles of 
months close together — the nips — the earth-worms, even 
vague hints of the rich old grandaunt — the}” too were to 
count for nothing! 

That last night at Pikerspeak Vassarline shook her fist at 
the photograph of the Bottomless Man. She took his old 
stomach-pump and banged it against the wall. 

“ I am glad I am able to do this,” she .said to herself. “ It 
makes it easier for me to go.” 

In the morning they took their cocktail together, as usual. 
There was scarcely any conversation between them. He 
asked for her address. She told him she was going back to 


■A LUNY LOVE-LETTER. 


6l 


Aunt Keziah, who kept the little junk-shop on the West 
side. 

“I will send you a bottle of water from Salt Lake,” he 
said. “ I am going to Utah next month to see my great- 
grandaunt.” 

“ I hope you will find her much married,” she said. 

Suddenly she recalled what he had said of his O. G. S.: 
of the will and the codicil. She looked up at him, but he 
only winked meaningly. 

They said good-bye at the top of the stairs. He spoke 
quietly : 

” Ta-ta! you little thing.” 

“Tra-la-la! ” she answered, without a tear. 

He went toward his roof-room. Once he turned, as 
though to speak. If he had any mind, he changed it and 
kept silent as a clam. 

An hour later Vassarline had left Pikerspeak. Only the 
night barman of the Bierhalle saw her leave with regret. 


XIV. 

A LUNY love-letter. 

Nineteen days after Vassarline left Pikerspeak the roof- 
snow began to melt. Nothing could be dirtier than that 
process ; nothing nastier than the gutters. 

The Bottomless Man sat in his beautiful room, trying to 
read Shoemaker’s Ayiatomy of Earth-worms. It failed to 
fill him ; so did six successive schooners. Then he looked 
lunily out. of the window, ruefully at his empty glasses. 
Suddenly he opened his typewriter and wrote as follows : 

“ Little Chicken ! Little Frog ! 

“ I could not believe you were really going when you 


62 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


said you were. I listened with unconcern because I believed 
I had hypnotized you ; that you w^ould come back from the 
station and I would have you to talk at always — at least 
until I had talked you to death! 

“ Many tough things have come to me, such as corns and 
notes in bank. But this is the toughest of all. I thought I 
was safely gone on myself ; now you have crept into my life 
and stolen my peace away. Without my knowledge I have 
had to give it up : you have improved mentally enough to 
go back to a fuller junk-shop. It is hard lines, though, that 
I am left with my earth-worms, alone ! 

“ You little one ! you shrewd little frog ! I never w^anted 
to love you. I have lived unlovely and unlovable all my 
young life — for I am young, compared to my great-grand- 
aunt. I said to my earth-worms : ‘ I will not love her. I 

am no good ; neither is she 1 ’ And then, in my state of 
finances, what right had I to think of marriage and losing a 
legacy? Of course that was out of the question. 

“ And then, I thought, because I was cut off from the 
will — or from the one tipple that might make a lovely thing 
of life — it did not follow that I might not love you a little 
bit ; keeping my chin close and loving you all the better for 
keeping the secret from my great-grandaunt. Little by 
little I learned that my heart was not dried up. When my 
earth-worms dry up, and I have drawn all the Higher Soul- 
fulness out of them, they cease to wriggle. But, you sly 
little one ! you will smile when I tell you that my heart fs 
wriggling like a young earth-worm on the hook. 

“ I am not so sorry that I let myself go as that I let you 
go ; for I — who know everything — had just learned that I 
love you. I love everything about you, even Aunt Keziah’s 
junk. Though I was often brutal and selfish to you, it was 
only for fun. That is a little way I have. When you did 
not box my ears it made me mad, for you are a sharp little 
Spitz not a wooden, woolly lamb on wheels. Then, alas ! 
I knew you did not consider me a Man, but an It ! 

“ You thought me rough and gruff at parting, Little Goat ! 
I could not trust myself to be tender. You would have 
guessed my secret, and so might my great-grandaunt. And 
then, where would have been my One G. S. ? 

“You once spoke of your loneliness. O, my own Little 



Now SHE RAISED HER.SELF AND STOOD ERECT — A GRAND, DIGNIFIED I.ITTLE FKiURE ! 




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A LUNY LOVE-LE TTER. 


65 


Chicken ! think of my loneliness, with no one left to set ’em 
up for me. What is your loneliness compared to mine? I, 
who have been waiting all my life for one to come and do 
this! You came; you have gone. You should not call 
yourself lonely any more. 

“ After I loaned you the old stomach-pump, my love for 
you grew apace. I nmst go on telling you. Just think, poor 
kittle Spitz, that this is the first love-letter I ever wrote. If 
you have ever received another you will not doubt the truth 
of this. Every word in it seems a page long to me : to you 
it must seem a volume.” 

Asper Allachin rose from the machine. He looked at 
his earth-worms with contempt, ‘at the old stomach-pump 
with tenderness unspeakable. Then he swallowed seven 
schooners of beer. His legs were unsteady ; there was an 
expression of awful anguish upon his face. Only his nose 
glowed triumphant. 

” I am losing my grip,” he muttered ; “ growing unworthy 
of the name I have won. But, perhaps, I only think that I 
think there are two banks of keys ! ” 

He sat heavily at the typewriter and thumped the keys 
rapidly again ; and this is what he wrote : 

“Yet how can I have you for my very own, since I have 
made the One Great Sacrifice? Some strong youngster 
without any great-grandaunt must hold you in his arms and 
wrap a $60 opera-cloak around you. Would I were that 
strong youngster and he a great-grandnephew ! 

“Well, as I am not he, I would .say a prayer — if I only 
knew how, and thought it would do any good — that you may 
soon hook a strong, great-grandauntless youngster ! It is 
not well for any of us with weak legs to stand too long 
alone. Loneliness that has stood too long is worse than 
stale beer! 

“You have often given your beer to me; no one before 
had ever been so good. Even if I did not love you, I should 
remember that — but I do love you! No one can now take ' 
that beer from me! No — they can — not ” 

The Bottomless Man stopped writing. The typewriter 


€6 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


bell rang. He buried his beer-stained face in the keyboard 
and busted the machine. 

He slept off his beer, this Bottomless Man. 

Some hours later he tried to read the letter he had been 
typing. Luckily there was no spacing ; no one could read it. 

“ It must have been — yes ; it was the beer ! ” he muttered. 
“ Gee-whilikins ! but what would my great-grandaunt have 
said ! ” 

He took the letter from the roller and tore it into frag- 
ments. 


BOOK TWO. 

I. 

THE dusting of The junk. 

It was now three weeks since Vassarline had returned to 
Chicago. She had gone back to her old home, at her Aunt 
Keziah’s junk-shop. She spent her whole time in dusting 
the junk and marking-up the prices on it ; for old Keziah 
Stryker had ceased to make any profit on it. The old lady 
had never cared as much about junk as she had about gin ; 
and now she sat in her little back shop, mixing endless tod- 
dies. A glass, a spoon, a sugar-jar and a black bottle filled 
her wants and herself; an undemanding life, but wholly a 
lovable one, since the more we ask for, the more we don’t 
get. 

When Vassarline had first shown symptoms of heredity, 
people said: “Old Keziah is fond of -her, in her froggy 
way ; she will be sorry.” But she didn’t seem to be sorry. 
She found a tadpole of memory, that Vassarline’s father 
had worked in a brewery ; that he had swallowed tuns of 
beer ; that he got fatty degeneracy and died. That 
was thirty years ago ; and the tadpole was no nearer a 
toad. Keziah knew nothing about heredity. When the 
girl had wanted beer, she said : “ People will thirst.” 
That was all. 

Unkind? No. When they told her Vassarline must go 
to the Cure, she rolled down her stocking — it was rarely 
that Keziah rolled down her stocking — and took out an 
ancient greenback. 

“When that is gone,” she said, “ I have another stock- 
ing.” 


(67) 


68 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


When Vassarline went to Pikerspeak, people said : 
“ Keziah will be lonely.” But she did not seem lonely. 
They asked her once and she said : ” I always have gin.” 

This was the home to which Vassarline returned. She 
looked back and remembered the One Great Sac. ‘ She had 
learned the limits of selfishness ; she would be as unselfish 
as the Bottomless Man, she thought. She would win 
Aunt Keziah’s affection, and would begin by dusting the 
junk. She did not in the least care about junk ; but the 
best moment of a hereditary thirst is when we have plenty 
of beer. Then we have no excuse for being idle ; and 
Vassarline had nothing to do, except to watch the rosy- 
faced young doctor of the Keeley Cure opposite. The 
rosy-faced young man watched her, too; but that was only 
across the street; and even hereditary girls long to have 
men nearer, even when they care nothing for them. 

So Vassarline dusted the junk ; sometimes selling it and 
buying beer with the change. All the time she thought of 
the Bottomless Man : she missed him in her lazy life. She 
had never loved anything before, and now she wondered if 
she loved him. The bent figure rose before her. So did 
the Bierhaus, and her eyes filled with tears. Sometimes the 
tears fell upon the junk, but it was dry and absorbed them 
quickly. Junk is unsympathetic, but that reminded her 
all the more of the Bottomless Man. 

On the whole she was bright, but she had lost much of 
her inherited thirst and found no longing to fill its place. 
She went back among her acquaintances, but found them 
hard, the women especially. They thought her luny. But 
she was not luii}". She was looking for the Higher Soulful- 
ness in their digestive processes, and as she had no moral ' 
stomach-pump — no mental microscope — she thought them 
luny likewise. 

“You have changed,” they said to her ; but she knew the 


THE DUSTING OF THE JUNK. 


69 


change was for the better. She had lived in a world of junk, 
consumed by the beer-thirst of heredity: She had burst that 
bondage and come out into the moderate Beer-land. 

Two or three drew nearer to her. She was alone with 
old Keziah and she needed their near-drawing. One of 
these was the rosy-faced young Keeleyite. She did not 
analyze him ; so he was very free with her now and revealed 
to her qualities which she had never suspected before in 
smug-faced young doctors. 

As the days went on, Keziah began to notice that things 
were a little different. She noticed cheap bouquets on the 
junk counter; once she found a three-cornered note under 
the cash-box. She was mixing a toddy at the time: she 
put aside the toddy and read the note. Vassarline did not 
know that. 

The girl, somehow, had all the illustrated papers now. 
One evening she did not have them — the evening that the 
Keeley Cure was closed for Labor Day. Old Keziah put on 
her venerable poke-bonnet, went out to the news-stand and 
bought the Town Topics. 

“ I do not know whiclLyou like,” she said; ” but will this 
do?” 

She seemed quite proud of this unusual attention ; almost 
as proud as the Bottomless Man, when he had done some- 
thing gruff and boorish. Vassarline thought of him, and 
a wink came into her eyes at once. When had she thought 
of him lately? Then she glanced at the society column, 
and the wink left her eye. She read that Asper Allachin’s 
great-grandaunt was dead. She had passed away at Salt 
Lake City, by spontaneous combustion ! 

So the Bottomless Man had his freedom at last. She 
wondered what he would do with it. His words echoed 
back to her : 

” She is very, very rich. But I know how to wait. 
Some day I shall be free. And then — !” 


70 


SCHOOJVERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


II. 

VASSYE BEGINS HER ETCHING. 

After the announcement of Miss Allachin’s combustion, 
Vassarline lived in a misery of suspense. Every day she 
scanned the accident column, dreading to read the record 
of another Eobbyjohn explosion; dreading, yet wishing to 
know. The Bottomless Man had yearned for ^ freedom ; 
now he was at liberty to explode if he wished to. Many a 
time she sat and shuddered; then she stood up and shud- 
dered. Many a time she began to write to him ; but what 
had she to .say? Each time she would look across the 
street, and the smug-faced Keeleyite would kiss his hand to 
her. 

A feeling of desperation came over her. Was it enough 
to have an old woman who wore greenbacks in her stock- 
ings: was it enough to dust the junk and swallow chance 
schooners? 

In the midst of her trouble she had an idea. She turned 
to it for comfort, as she once had turned to the Bierhalle. 

“ I will try to write an Etching,” she said to herself. 
“ Every girl in trouble should write an Etching. If it means 
nothing to anybody, it will mean much to me; I shall forget 
my perplexity.” 

The love of beer had left her. If any other love had come, 
it was not the love of work. Vassarline only fretted. She 
sat in the old junk-shop, her pencil unsharpened, her pad 
unscratched. She began to get thirsty again. She was very, 
very miserable. 

Then one evening, when she had quite concluded that 
an Etching was only a Humbug, she bit off the end of her 
pencil suddenly and wrote this one. 


HUMBUG AND REALITY ; AN ETCHING. 


71 


III. 

HUMBUG AND ReALlTY; AN ETCHING. 

Humbug and Reality^’passed from Earth by the Kitchen- 
Stairs, and found themselves in a Hotter Eand. 

Humbug still wore the gauze and spangles which she had 
used in Life’s variety show. There was elasticity about her 
calves; rouge and a set smile on her face, as though she felt 
she had deserved all her applause. 

Reality’s form was bowed; no gauze and spangles en- 
veloped it. Her face was unpainted and her calves cramp- 
etched. She had never been beautiful ; long since she had 
lost her grace and her teeth. 

They stood together, these two, waiting audience with 
the Sovereign of the Hotter Land. A bent and aged man 
shambled up and asked their names. 

“I am Humbug,” that spoilt young female said, with a 
pert smile and pointing to her spangles. 

He gnashed his gums. He mumbled thickly : 

“Ah! be not too secure. Things go by opposites in this 
Land. What you call Humbug, we often call Reality; 
your Reality is our Humbug. See those two men toasting 
together? The one well-browned was thought a good man 
in your world ; the one underdone was a bad accountant. 
The good man came out short as treasurer for a Church 
Fair; the bad accountant was fixed by his bondsmen. This 
seems strange to you? Oh! it’s' nothing to what you’ll 
learn in the Hotter Land. That Statesman yonder you 
considered trustworthy. Here we know he was only 
worthy to A Trust. We chose as our poet-laureate the 
man who wrote the words of ‘ Yankee Doodle.’ Your 
world scoffed at him. And those Thorn-apple flowers! 
They have for us a fragrant charm, Your world turns its 


72 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


nose away from them, except where you pluck them for 
Ointments.” 

The aged man paused to wipe away a tear. He turned 
kindly to Reality : 

“ And your name?” he asked, simply; though, as his tat- 
ters showed, in the world he must have known Her. 

“I am Reality,” she answered, in shame. 

“You are the girl we’re waiting for!” — he tucked his 
ragged elbow under her arm, leading her dude-like — “ Come I 
You are Humbug now! I am your long-lost Granddaddy 
and my nam® is Experience. Let me lead you to the In- 
candescent Chamber.” 

She who had been called Reality lifted her bent form, 
kicking with delight at the tickling of her new name. And 
with that kick she recovered elasticity and youth and her 
face was painted — by Hope. 

“ But what of her,” she asked, regretfully, of her long-lost 
Granddaddy. “Must Humbug be left? ” 

“Oh! she’s all right,” the old man whispered. “We’ll 
see her later.” 

Then he ushered her of the new name into the Incan- 
descent Chamber. But the Sovereign said: 

“We still need you in the Upper World, much-sought 
and honored worker! You know your Real Name; do not 
heed what the world calls you. Go back and work; but 
take with you this time Unconquerable Cheek !” 

She went, taking with her Unconquerable Cheek and the 
sweet balm of Real Knowledge. And, ever since. Humbug 
has been strictly In It. 



XOW SHE LOVED THE BOTTOMLESS MAN ; AND SUDDENLY SHE CLASPED HIM IN HER 

ARMS, HUGGING HIM HELPLESS. 





THE BOTTOMLESS MAN LOSES HIS GRIP. 


75 


IV. 

THE BOTTOMLESS MAN LOSES HIS GRIP. 

For a week after Vassarline wrote her etching she felt 
better. It had not begun to come back — postage collect — 
from the editors. 

She was sitting with her aunt in the little back shop. 
Old Keziah had not mixed a gin-toddy for nineteen min- 
utes. She still held the black bottle up to the light ; but 
she was only watching Vassarline through it. 

“Aunt Kez,” the girl said, brusquely, “you are a tough 
old girl and must have had many a high old time. Was 
there ever one when you cared for any young fellow? ” 

“It was long, long ago,” Keziah answered, looking 
dreamily through the bottle. “ I was soft on Mathias. He 
threw me over. That was all.” 

“That was all?” Vassarline repeated, snuggling closer to 
her. “You loved and got the sack? Then you would not 
cut off my beer if I unburthened my heart to you? ” 

For answer the girl felt the touch of the black bottle 
tremulously stroking her bangs. Calmed by its coolness, 
she told how she didn’t know whether she loved the Bot- 
tomless Man or the codicil. She thought it was the codi- 
cil. It was simply told — a noble, dignified recital — her 
listener being an old soaker, who almost forgot the words as 
they were spoken. Vassarline had not well begun when 
shoes creaked. Keziah flopped under the counter. Vas- 
sarline looked up. The Bottomless Man was sitting on the 
counter. 

“You Little Thing! ” he said. “You didn’t get my letter: 
it is eight weeks since I wrote it.” 

Vassarline leaned over the counter. 


76 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


“ Confound the strike and delayed mails,” she thought. 

“I never sent it,” he went on. His face was ashen gray 
and he seemed more bent since she saw him last. “At last 
I am free. My great-grandaunt is combusted.” 

“I know,” she said, gently — “ but you are not free.” 

He made no answer to that, only slipped off the counter 
and curled on the floor. 

“You look tidy,” lAc said, presently. “What have you 
been doing?” 

“ I have been cultivating my bangs,” she answered, staring 
at him. “You once told me I should be content to do that. 
The crankiest and coarsest of them had my tenderest care.” 

“ I suppose you have done your best,” he said, grimly. 
“ Well, what else?” 

“ I have been chinning my old aunt. We are just begin- 
ning to understand each other. It makes all safer to under- 
stand each other.” 

“ Some never do understand,” he said. 

“ I think I have better luck than that. There is a rosy 

young ” She stopped, biting her tongue; “ And I have 

written an Etching.” 

“ I wonder if I could stand reading it,” he said. 

“You shall. When it is printed I will send it to you at 
Pikerspeak.” 

“ Why should I go back to Pikerspeak? ” he asked, gloom- 
ily. “ I went there for my great-grandaunt’s sake.” 

“ And the codicil’s? ” she added, deliberately. 

“ Tittle Vass! ” he cried, “is it possible that you care 
what became of the codicil?” 

She had been leaning upon the counter. Now .she raised 
herself and stood erect upon it — a grand, dignified little 
figure ! 

“Yes, I do care! ” she cried down at him with earnest 
simplicity. “ I do care, with all my heart. But even if I 


THE BOTTOMLESS MAN LOSES HIS GRIP. 


77 


did not care, you would not be free. No one is free. Each 
man belongs to some girl, who depends upon him ! ” 

Still he did not speak. Her knees knocked loudly to- 
gether, but she went on bravely: 

“ But it is not for those others I plead. I plead for my- 
self! You will play your game out like a little man ! 
Others may trump, but the Bottomless Man has the codicil- 
joker in his sleeve ! ” 

Still he did not speak. A picture rose before his mind’s 
eye — a picture of a man and woman finding happiness in a 
lifetime of junk-shop; not happiness based on a codicil, or 
One Great Sacrifice— but a happiness based upon mutuality 
and a square division of their beer. The picture was not 
an original, only a cheap copy. 

“ Little Chicken ! Little Frog!” he said vacantly. “ The 
O. G. S. was a plumb sell. She scratched out the codicil 
and left everything to her trained nurse ! ” 

It was a foul blow : it struck her below the belt. She only 
gasped, speechless. One little hand mechanically grasped 
the black bottle, flourishing it as a mace. Then it fell limp; 
she curled upon the counter, sitting an inert mass upon her 
feet. 

“ I’ll see you later,” Asper Allachin muttered. “You 
seem to think more of me than you can manage to say.” 

The next five minutes he was gone. 

That afternoon Vassarline went far into the West Side. 
She saw the windows of the Keeley Cure office closed. But 
she was not unhappy; she had been planning little plans 
for herself. There would be no room for unhealthy, bent 
men in them. She would tell the Bottomless Man so to- 
morrow. She knew he would be glad. If he wasn’t, he 
ought to be. That was enough. 

“Above all,” she said to herself, “there shall be no room 


78 


SCHOONERS THAT BUMP ON THE BAR. 


for unhealthy, bent men. I must do my own deep-plowing 
now. I must sub-soil my opportunity ! ” 

That was what she was thinking at four in the afternoon : 
how best to cultivate her opportunity. 

At five she was turning from the chancel-rail of a modest 
church in the far West Side. 

“She will not be divorced,” the reverend Doctor said to 
the sexton. “ She actually cares for him. Poor little 
thing ! ” 

Vassarline had married the smug-faced young doctor of 
the Keeley Cure. 

At six she had regained conscience enough to look in 
on Aunt Keziah. Then she whispered : 

“ Tell the Bottomless Man how I wish I could have seen 
him to-morrow. I would have so liked to hear what he 
had to say about it. But then, I had another— engage- 
ment ! ” 


V. 

THE BREAKING OF THE CAMEE’S BACK. 

Aspcr Allachin came to the old junk-shop to see Keziah 
Stryker before leaving town. He was going to travel for a 
ginger-ale house. These two had stood together by Vas- 
sarline’s wedding presents. 

“ I was beginning to make her useful,” the old woman 
said. 

“I have always made her useful,” the bent man said. 
‘ ‘ I can not remember a girl that has been so useful in my 
life.” 

“She never loved you,” Keziah sighed. “She was 
going to tell me so the day yow creaked in.” 


THE BREAKING OF THE CAMEUS BACK. 


79 


Then, with a tenderness that was foreign to her, Keziah 
opened her arms to him. She had never loved but one 
man before, and he had thrown her over. Now she loved 
the Bottomless Man, and she suddenly clasped him to her 
heart, hugging him helpless. 

“ I do not love you because of a codicil,” she cried. “ I 
love you for yourself! ” 

These were her very words. 

“Thank you,” said the Bottomless Man, disengag’insr 
himself. “ But confound you for telling me!” 

Then he added: 

“ I rather think I prefer to go back to my earth-worms. I 
believe I will do my deep-plowing alone ! ” 

Keziah went back to her gin toddies. 

The Bottomless Man went back to Pikerspeak to empty 
more schooners there. We all empty our schooners, whether 
consciously or unconsciously. If they give out, we fill them 
again. 

“We will fill them up fuller this time,” we say to our- 
selves. 

So we begin once more. 

We are very boozy. 

And meanwhile the schooners bump-. 


.THE BOTTOM OF THE SCHOONER. 





“ The Prose Epic of the Bloody Confederate Drama 


FOUR YEARS IN REBEL CAPITALS 

An Inside View op Sociae Life in the Confederacy 
FROM Berth to Death; from Originae 
Notes made from i86i to 1865. 

BY T. C. DELEON. 


A*t{hor's Autograph Edition, v)ith Prefatory Sketch by L. de V. Chaudron ; 
Autographed Portrait of the Author and a Useful Appendix. 


386 LARGE PAGES; FINE PAPER; CLOTH, GILT. 31 .50. 


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Mailed or expressed (prepaid) to any address on receipt of $ 1 . 50 , by 

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1 he Best Novel of Southern Life Yet Written. ” 


THE PUHITflN’S DHDGHTEI 

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Thk Romance of Guef Coast Life and Mieitarv M 
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The sequel to “ Creole and Puritan ” answers the racial questions suggested 
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This charming story is delightful exposition of the New Englander's stern- 
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Well written and full of interest for any class of readers.— A^. Y. fournal of 
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The most perfect portrayal of true Southern life and character this country 
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Mailed to any address (prepaid) on receipt of 50 cents, by 

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